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ὅσον ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν: here retrospective (οὐδενός κω ἀνθρώπων ὑπήκοοι ἐγένοντο). The whole statement presents a standing formula (cp. c. 27 supra) in a slightly modified form. διατελεῦσι τὸ μέχρι ἐμεῦ αἰεὶ ἐόντες ἐλεύθεροι μοῦνοι Θρηίκων. Rawlmson sees in these words a reference to the conquests of the Odrysae (cp. Thuc. 2. 95-97, and c. 137 infra), but admits that the statement is overdrawn. The reference is obscure and unconvincing. In the list of Thracian tribes the Odrysae are conspicuous by their absence: why are they not named here as in Bk. 4? They are here implicitly placed among the conquered, not among the conquerors. Hdt. knows of more than one conquest of Thrace: the Myso-Teukria<*>, c. 20 supra, in which all Thracians were conquered (in contradiction to this passage!); the Persian. This passage may have been written before the rise of the Odrysae, and confirms the hypothesis of the early composition of Bks. 7-9. Cp. Introduction, § 8. τὸ μέχρι ἐμεῦ cannot here be a birth-date (γεγονότος), and is almost superfluous with the present of the verb, unless, indeed, it be an addition by the author's hand to correct the exaggeration.
οἰκέουσί τε ὄρεα ὑψηλὰ ... καὶ εἰσὶ τὰ πολέμια ἄκροι. These things go together in Hdt.'s philosophy; cp. 9. 122 infra. ἴδῃσι συνηρεφέα is correct enough (cp. 1. 110), χιόνι ς. seems rather bizarre. Hdt. has also somewhat exaggerated the nature of the country, the mountains of which would hardly have extorted such a description from him at first hand. The next clause seems to show that the mountain in question is Pangaios.
τοῦ Διονύσου τὸ μαντήιον: spoken of as a thing notorious. Alexander is reported to have consulted this oracle (Suetonius, Aug. 94) and to Octavius, “cum per secreta Thraciae exercitum duceret, <*> Liberi patris luco barbara caeremonia oe filio consulenti ... infuso super altaria mero, tantum flammae emicuisset, ut super gressa fastigium templi ad caelum usque ferretur.” (The same portent had occurred in Alexander's case.) The holy place was transferred to the custody of the Odrysae by Crassus in 29 B.C. (Dio Cass. 51. 25). The site still awaits identification.
Βησσοὶ δέ: cp. previous chapter (as also for ‘Satrai’). Rawlinson connects the name with Βασσαρίς, Βασσαρεύς (βασσάρα, the fox, or fox-skin worn by Bacchanals): cp. βασσάριον 4. 192, Horace, Od. 1. 18. 11.
ἡ χρέωσα κατά περ ἐν Δελφ<*>οῖσι. Hdt. (if he wrote the passage) might have added Branchidai, Patara, Argos, Dodona, and other sites to the list of places where a priestess, or female votary, was the internuntia of the deity. On the subject of ‘sex in ancient religion’ cp. L. R. Farnell, Archiv f. Religionsw. vii. (1904) 70 ff.
οὐδὲν ποικιλώτερον: (1) neque illa (oracula) magis perplexa, Schweighaeuser; modo minus perplexo minusque ancipiti (quam quo Delphis ista edi solebant), Baehr; “in einer nicht zweideutigeren Sprache,” id.; “her answers are not harder to read,” Rawlinson; “the oracles are not at all more obscure,” Macaulay. But these re<*>derings all convey something very like a reproach to Delphi. It is one thing for Euripides to sneer at divination: ποικίλα ὁ θεὸς ὡς ἔφυ τι ποικίλον Hel. 711, ἐρμηνεύματα Phoen. 470; quite another for Hdt.; cp. 8. 77. (2) Perhaps for this reason Stein has given the words another turn: “weiter ist da nichts, was uber das gewohnliche hinausgienge” = “beyond this there is nothing further of a remarkable character,” Macaulay. But this interpretation puts a great strain on the words. (3) Lange's “eben so schaifsinning” is also a tour de force. Is not the whole passage οὖτοι οἱ ... ποικιλώτερον suspiciously like a gloss from a later hand?
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